Effect of exchange reactions on transport processes: A comparison of thermodynamic treatment with random walk on lattice points

Abstract

The effect of an AX+A ⇄ A+AX exchange reaction on the transport of X is discussed for a general transport process driven by the gradient in the chemical potential of AX, as well as its special cases of isothermal diffusion and electric conductivity. This treatment based on macrodifferentials is compared with a stochastic treatment of random walk on regular lattice points in one‐, two‐ , and three‐dimensional cases. The basic equivalence is proved for the two methods which ensures the application of the latter, more simple, procedure with general validity. It is also shown that the stochastic treatment reveals some aspects that remain hidden in the thermodynamic approach.